


burning crops and famine

by thefudge



Category: Interstellar (2014)
Genre: (really fucked up yall), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Father-Daughter Relationship, Fucked Up, Parent/Child Incest, Sins of the Father, cleaning out my drafts, ost: pioneer to the falls by interpol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-23 14:20:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19152790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefudge/pseuds/thefudge
Summary: AU. Cooper returns earlier and gets to meet his grown-up daughter, but everything comes at a price. Cooper/Murph





	burning crops and famine

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of my on-going project to clear out my old drafts (aka documents I've had lying around which I never published because I was either not pleased with them or it wasn't the right time). The bare bones of this was written all the way back in 2015 but I've spruced it up. Anyway! Let me traumatize you!

 

Show me the dirt pile and I will pray that the soul can take  
Three stowaways  
Vanish with no guile and I will not pay, but the soul can wait

 

 

 

The soul can wait

\- _pioneer to the falls_ , interpol 

 

***

 

The blazing redhead in front of him reminds him of burning crops and famine. All beauty does that to him nowadays. It hurts.

He’s come back home to a crumbling red loam, the kind that leaves bloody smears on his fingers. His head’s a little screwy too. Facts and numbers flash red like airport terminals. Images like old film blacken into oblivion. He barely knows his name. He knows this is Earth and not a black hole, but the difference is not that stark, not that definite. In fact, the multiplicity inside the hole, the unmapped variety, that’s what life really is, or _should_ be.

He doesn’t protest when she takes a seat next to him.

She smiles, but her eyes are sad, a little diluted, probably somewhere else.  Everyone’s somewhere else. No one wants to be on Evacuation Planet.

“Listen, I don’t do this often. Well, _never_ , actually. But I’d like to take you home with me. I’m feeling kind of lonely. Do you mind?”

She’s got a soft, scratchy voice. It sounds upper-crust and somehow salt-of-the-earth. Reminds him of a family matriarch, patient but unwavering, asking you to be honest and tell her if you’ve said your prayers before mealtime.

She’s not really lonely, he thinks.  It’s just the simmering panic they all feel at having to let go of all things familiar. People cling to people.

He frowns at her, like he expects her to admit it. But she sits there expectantly, smiling a tremulous smile.

Her bone structure is delicate, diaphanous, her skin almost translucent. That sounds like a weird thing to remark upon but he’d rather sit here and watch her lambent features in the low light than do anything else.

Something nags at him, like a loose stitch on a garment. He’s supposed to do something.

The redhead places her hand over his callused fingers.

“You’ve been watching me all night,” she says as if to explain herself. “That’s why I came over.”

Has he?

Shit, he _has_. He realizes now he’s been staring in her direction like a gaping fish, seeing and unseeing. She was a nice stop to rest his eyes on: a quiet lady nursing a drink in her shaded corner by the grimy jukebox which has been playing Hall & Oates’ _Out of Touch_ on a broken loop.

Something out of an old-timey postcard.  

“I’m sorry,” he says, tongue-tied. “Didn’t mean to.”

“It’s all right.” She exposes her teeth in a silent laugh. “I admit I’ve been staring back.”

He looks down at her poised fingers next to his. No wedding ring. He wants to say, _I’m a wreck. I don’t even know what day it is. I can’t recall what I did last week. I don’t even know where I was._

But she’s beautiful, like burning crops and famine. She’s a picture frame from another time.

He wants to be a part of that world one last time.

“So, what do you say?” she asks, watching him surreptitiously from half-lidded eyes.

He gets up from the bar stool, brushes past her.

“You’ll regret this,” he whispers in her ear. Her scent, like baked goods, fills his nostrils. His mouth waters a little.

The redhead smiles up at him. “Hey, what’s life without a few regrets?”

 

 

 

She doesn't take him home.

She takes him to the motel across the road. Half of it has been shut down for “renovation”, but that’s not happening. Some of the windows are boarded up. There’s room, though. They’re the only guests.

The sheets which he falls back on are not clean, but she is a cleansing presence.

She starts to methodically undress him. Her touch burns and spooks. It shoots something electric down his spine and he doesn’t understand why he’s suddenly churned up. Yeah, he hasn’t been with a woman in ages, but still. Just feeling her skin makes his teeth chatter in his mouth. The contact sends him down a spiral of lust and despair. He wants her all at once, badly. He can’t stand the way she keeps telling him to “lie down”, “let me help you”. He can take off his own pants, thank you very much. But no, she’ll do it for him. She’ll do everything. She’s firm and steady and agonizing, and he can’t really fight it.

 He just wants to gather her in his palms like dough, squeeze and deform the flesh. He’s like a thirsty man with a canister; he never realized how much he yearned. He lifts his hand to her cheek. “Please, just…come here.”

Her red hair spills against his face like chemtrails. It smells like home.

“I’m here.”

He’s naked, but she’s not. She’s still wearing a grey T-shirt, but she’s relieved herself of jeans and underwear.

He tugs on her shirt. Maybe it’s selfish, but he wants to see all of her. He can see the inkling of nipples through the fabric and he wants to put them in his mouth.

She’s too busy watching him, eyes rapt with hunger as she catalogs every scar and age folly. He’s not that old, he knows, but space fucks up your internal clock. Hell, she’s probably older but looks decades younger.  

When she grabs his cock and sinks on it, it’s so abrupt it’s almost unpleasant. No foreplay, no time to change his mind. But she’s silky wet. He gasps. She silences him with a kiss on the mouth, lips pressed together, chaste, no tongue. It makes him groan.  

He tries to remove her shirt again and she slaps his hands away. She rolls her hips slowly, towering over him. “Don’t touch me unless I say so.”

It makes him groan again.

“Can I – kiss you, at least?”

Her eyes are distant. “Why?”

“More personable,” he says hoarsely as she keeps riding him slowly.  

She leans down again. “Tell you what. First, put your hands on my ass and squeeze.”

He obliges.

He kneads the flesh, guides her up and down his cock, feels the softness all around him. He closes his eyes.

She speaks against his mouth. “Good. Now you can use one hand to finger my clit. Just to keep busy.”

There’s dark humor in the cadence of her words. It sounds familiar.

He rubs his thumb against the bundle of nerves, feels the warmth of her belly against his palm. The sounds she makes thrill him.

“Are you close?” she asks him breathily against his mouth. He tries to kiss her, she darts sideways. “Tell me how close you are.”

He moans, mad at himself for following her here, for wanting more than he’s getting. “Close. Fuck – too close.”  

He should pull out, he shouldn’t spill inside her. Even if fertility rates are at an all-time low.

But then she says, “ _good_ …me too, I'm _so_ close,” and he can’t really think straight. Her skin is flushed, her freckles strawberry sweet. She pins him down, one hand on his chest, the other around his head, gripping his hair. He feels her walls pulsing around his cock and he lets go.

As the orgasm hits him, she tugs on his hair, forces him to open his eyes.

She speaks into his mouth. “See, you never should’ve left, Daddy. I told you the message said _Stay_. I told you. You didn't believe me.”

He comes inside her, can’t stop it, can’t even move because of her solid weight. He opens his mouth to scream, but he can’t – he can’t do anything, the pleasure and horror wrack him, make him convulse and split open.

Murph makes sure she squeezes the last drop of him before she releases his cock. He’s shriveled. He falls sideways, bunching his knees to his chest, a sick fetus.

He remembers now what he had to do.

He had to go see Murph. But she wouldn't answer his calls. She was never home. 

Did he try to find her? 

He howls. 

She ambles to the bathroom, turns on the water.

Cooper starts sobbing, stuffing the sheet in his mouth.

Murph washes her face and hands.

She doesn’t wash anything else. His cum is still dripping down her thigh as she stands in the doorway.

“I was scared you’d recognize me.” She shrugs. “They told me your brain’s been fried. I didn’t want to believe it. Tom sent videos for you to watch. He was always more sentimental. Maybe he can forgive you. I still can’t.”  

Cooper can’t look at her. His body convulses with sobbing. He wants to tear his hair out.

Murph swallows. She feels less satisfied than she’d hoped. She’s hurt him in a way that almost makes up for his loss. But it doesn’t. Nothing will make up for it.

She sits down on the bed behind him. She runs her knuckles over his back.

He keens.

“Oh, stop it. It was worse for me, all these years. Remember how we used to watch all those Twilight Zone episodes where the man comes back from space and his girlfriend is too old for him? Isn’t this better?”

She sounds calm and unhinged. She is the burning crop, the famine. She is the pretty, angry red destruction which burns all things until they’re black and charred. Until there's no breathable atmosphere. After it's all gone, after they're all gone, she'll inventory them. She'll multiply and mirror them, stack the ruins on a shelf. A black hole.

She lies down next to him, burrows into his back.

Cooper is still with grief and horror.

Murph nestles her nose against his spine. “You know what really insulted me? You didn’t take me seriously. You had to go to space to believe me. I was right about the science. I was right about the coordinates. I was right about you. I always am.”

She kisses the knot in his spine.

“How does it feel to be a hero, Daddy?”

He curls into himself until he’s a shell, until there’s nothing left.

Murph looks up at the ceiling as if she can see the sky and stars beyond, and smiles. 


End file.
